The world was bent on gathering up its treasures, frantically bewailing the lost books of Livy, the lost songs of Sappho--absorbing to intoxication the strong wine of multitudinous thoughts and passions that kept pouring from those long-buried amphora of inspiration.

What is most remarkable about this age of scholarship is the enthusiasm which pervaded all classes in Italy for antique culture.

Popes and princes, captains of adventure and peasants, noble ladies and the leaders of the demi-monde, alike became scholars.

There is a story told by Infessura which illustrates the temper of the times with singular felicity.

On the 18th of April 1485 a report circulated in Rome that some Lombard workmen had discovered a Roman sarcophagus while digging on the Appian Way.